Millennials receive too much unnecessary flak

Graphic by Fani Hsieh
Graphic by Fani Hsieh

Apparently, it’s a trendy thing to hate millennials now. While I have never experienced this in my day-to-day life, it seems to be rather prevalent on the internet.

Now, I have to defend my generation.

Other generations say millennials spend more time at home, do not move out of their parents’ house, take too many selfies, are not entrepreneurial, are not investing, are narcissistic and don’t stay at one job for too long, among other things.

Wow. That’s quite the number of insults levied at us, whether they be based on economic issues or social issues.

Sure, the “Greatest Generation” fought the World Wars and recovered from, quite possibly, the worst recession of the modern era and “baby boomers” advanced the world in terms of technology and research.

The average person who comes from those generations probably has not contributed to any of its accomplishments and should not take pride in things they, themselves, have not accomplished. This applies to millennials as well.

With that being said, let’s take a look at the pressing issues with millennials that other generations point out.

Millennials live at home longer than any other generation. This is supposed to be a bad thing, I guess. The naysayers say, “these millennials are lazy and do not want to work or be independent and so they live at home. So this generation sucks.”

Earlier generations will always be critical of the next one. Same for us as a generation. It’s a cycle of cynicism.

It is a fantastic economic decision to live at home. This “pride in being independent” when it comes to this situation is, quite frankly, ridiculous.

In major cities of commerce and financial opportunity, like Toronto and Vancouver, housing prices are skyrocketing.

Combine that with the rising costs of education, student debt and degrees that, while worthwhile, might not be the most economically viable. Ultimately, this can result in us living at home at a higher rate.

The baby boomers would love for us to buy houses as it increases the value of their existing ones, but I won’t go further with that.

Other generations love to rip on our vanity, specifically through selfie taking.

While I agree that selfie taking and photo sharing apps like Instagram can lead to an inflated image of oneself, I find it funny that other generations act like they would not have done the same things we do if they had the technology we have.

Other generations also hate on millennials for their lack of patriotism. American millennials have either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton to look forward to. I wouldn’t be patriotic either.

Other than that, with the amount of reprehensible things the U.S. government has done, including drone strikes, unwarranted wars and having policies that young, mostly left leaning millennials don’t support, no wonder they aren’t patriotic.

Critiquing and questioning your country is a good thing. Mindlessly promoting how good your country is, without analyzing and looking into how your country actually operates, doesn’t seem like a good brand of patriotism to me.

They also say that millennials are not investing and are not entrepreneurial.

Experts have suggested that this decrease in economic productivity has huge ramifications on the economic success of the countries that western millennials are in, specifically the U.S. and Canada.

Our economy pales in comparison to that of the baby boomer generation. That generation was richest, active and most physically fit generation in history to date. A 20-year mortgage didn’t seem like much to them, as they had an abundance of wealth.

With that wealth and security through income and retirement programs, they could risk more money on entrepreneurial ventures and investments.

Unfortunately, we millennials can’t do that. Uncertainty about the stock market and risking capital for ventures really puts a damper on productivity.

Earlier generations will always be critical of the next one. Same for us as a generation. It’s the cycle of cynicism. It certainly is a tough time to be a millennial, but we are young and uncertainty won’t affect us as much as it did the baby boomers with the 2008 crash.

Maybe that’s why they want us to work so hard. So we can fund their social safety nets.

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